Following up on the success of Barbie, Greta Gerwig could have made basically whatever she wanted. It’s telling, then, that she decided to dive head first into an adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Now, following the news that Gerwig’s adaptation will be released exclusively in IMAX theaters for at least two weeks before it hits theaters, IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond has suggested that Netflix might be planning to adapt all eight of Lewis’s novels.
“This was a really great movie [for us] because I think there are like eight movies planned … and what Imax does best is launch franchises and launch events, [and] this is the kind of movie that is very conducive to an Imax release. It’s also not as unusual as you think,” Gelfond said in an interview with Deadline.
Gerwig is currently signed on for a two-picture deal, and it’s unclear whether she would be the director for each adaptation (which would require a decade or more of work) or whether she’ll eventually move on to other projects.
The Narnia novels have been adapted once before, and on that occasion, we only ultimately got three. Netflix’s plan to adapt all eight novels, which include The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, and The Last Battle, will likely depend in part on how successful Gerwig’s adaptations are.
Given her track record to date, there’s plenty of reason to get excited about the potential.
